"Firstly, I want to announce the new play we will be performing." - Mark

It's now six months since the end of the World, see Concrete Jungle for a full disclosure of civilisation collapsing under the sudden onslaught of Mountain Ash and jungle. A group of survivors are trying to maintain a sanctuary on the banks of a river in an old shopping mall. Their guardian, Bill, fears an attack from a breakaway group who have descended into savagery on the other side of the river. Under his vigilance Maddy tries to find a new life for her sister Lucy and young orphan Grace as something unseen stalks what could be the final outpost of normalcy in an altogether Alien world.

Meanwhile across the river Mark is leading his group of fine young cannibals as they seek to break from civilisation into a state of complete freedom. While Mark might have a few Roos bounding around the top paddock, he also knows there's something very wrong in the Blockbuster his gang have taken over. Well okay more wrong than cannibalism, rape, and torture, the normal activities of his crew. Mark views the activities on the other side of the river with avarice; a day of reckoning is coming.

Whenever I get a new McBean to read I have a reaction like some folks have to a new Stephen King, sort of a Christmas morning excitement. Anyways for mine there is only one way of settling in to read a new Brett McBean novel. If you are female then strip off to your lingerie, get some provocative shots, and send them on in to ScaryMinds. Honest we won't use them in any sort of misogynist capacity, you can trust me we're online reviewers. Okay assuming that plea isn't going to work, then your best bet for getting your McBean on is to set aside a full day with nothing else to do but read the book. Yo it's a law of nature, any other approach will see you using a torch to read extra pages under the bed covers at night. My bad news was I came down with the effects of a nasty virus during the week, my good news was I received a copy of Neighbourhood Jungle. Now how's that for turning a frown upside down! Virus still raging kids, thanks for asking.

McBean doesn't waste any time in setting up his background, the current situation, and putting our antagonist and protagonist pieces on the board. Its six months since the end of civilisation, the survivors fall into two groups, those trying to bring back some form of civilisation and those who have descended into total savagery, preying on other survivors. Maddy and Bill's group have a semblance of communist society, they look after everyone, and try and keep people safe. Across the river Mark's group of degenerates make New Guinean head hunters look like members of the Wiggles. McBean shows his normal economy of writing with setting up his novel, there isn't a wasted word anywhere in the book. The Writer kicks it into high gear with rapid pace, enough exposé to get the reader to the place he wants them, and action at a premium over page after page of description. If you like high octane writing then say hello to ground zero.

The problem the intelligentsia have with Brett McBean is that they can't simply write him off, no pun intended, as just another horror writer throwing books out for mass consumption. McBean seems to have cotton onto that symbolism thing University Lecturers and other people who attempt to gut and quarter literature are always on about. McBean was hitting this back in his early novel The Mother, all about life and the Hume highway, showing he had a few more things going on between the covers than your average purveyor of dark dreams. With Neighbourhood Jungle McBean uses the river that runs through as a metaphor for the divide between the two main groups of survivors that inhabit the pages of the novel. There's more separating the two groups than simply an easily crossed river, but you get the idea, McBean hits the literary equivalent of a banquet rather than the expected burger and fries we normally get. And hey I love me some burger but am more than pleased to get something more up market if it presents itself. This isn't to say that McBean doesn't throw on the colourful prose, he hits that aspect of dark genre writing like a hyenia onto a wounded antelope, McBean's characters sweat, hit the dunny, and don't mysteriously avoid the dirt and grime like Hollywood Actors seem to do.

Serious readers are also going to dig the concepts McBean uses to bookmark his latest novel. I appreciated the literary mechanism in use while also noting the Writer hitting out with some grisly concepts. Best use of a McDonald's sign since the one in North Sydney was pulled down to the applause of everyone watching.

Drop your linen and start your grinning kids, McBean pulls off the best curve ball since Ridley Scott shocked the hell out of us with Alien. I'm not about to give out any spoilers here, hey read the book, but am prepared to say the focal point of the novel isn't going to be what you expect from the first few pages. It's a neat trick and one I appreciated like a cold beer on a hot day after mowing the lawns. McBean on previous outings has proven he's got a formable talent, with Neighbourhood Jungle he nails those credentials to a wall in the town square. I was rocking out with the twists McBean threw my way and am now more than sweating on the next release in the series.

About the only bone I have to pick with McBean is the actual conclusion of Neighbourhood Jungle. The entire book builds towards a confrontation between the two groups but there is no resolution to that confrontation. Clearly McBean is working toward the next novel in the series and left me hanging like a Wallaby winger with the line open. I once read that people used to queue up on docks in North America waiting for the arrival of the latest serialisation of Charles Dickens' novels. Stephen King tried to pull off the same thing with The Green Mile in its original published form. I'm stating here and now that I'm going down the metaphoric docks as soon as I hear that the third novel in the series is ready to roll. McBean pulls off the best cliff hanger ending since the concept of the cliff hanger was invented by some particularly sadistic bastard!

Simply put I had a whale of a time, whatever the hell that means, with Neighbourhood Jungle, the book kept me glued to the page during not only the first reading, but also a second reading. Did I mention there's something unknown in the jungle stalking the survivors? McBean hints at what it might be without giving any definitive answers. The Writer pulled off a novel full of twists that goes places I wasn't expecting. I had a hoot with it and have zero problems recommending the novel to all ScaryMinds readers, either casual or dedicated. I'm actually prepared to say this novel is the best yet from McBean, though I must admit to not having read Torment yet, a situation I'm aiming to remedy sooner rather than later.

McBean dedicates Neighbourhood Jungle to the U.S dark genre Writer Richard Laymon, a huge influence on his career, with this Novel McBean shows signs that he is growing as an Author far beyond Laymon's style.

Now just when you think it can't get any better Tasmaniac go over the top and include two short stories in the collection, talk about being spoilt as a reader. The first story, Mother/Nature by Irish writer Kealan Patrick Burke, provides the entrée to McBean's novel. Burke hit's the same jungle trail in a tale that asks the female protagonist to re-evaluate her place in the world and the decisions she has made. Burke delivers almost a feminist tract that has his main character rising above the mundane and fully ceasing the new world order. It's an excellent prologue piece to Neighbourhood Jungle and does full justice to McBean's universe. The book rounds out with Jungle Juice by Downunder horror bad boy R. Frederick Hamilton. If you think McBean can get down and dirty in the horror trenches then get ready for Hamilton to add the viscera like sauce to a particularly gruelling experience. Hamilton knows exactly how to get the situation hitting you between the eyes and doesn't disappoint here with a tale that shows there's more dangers lurking in the jungles than the obvious ones. It's a nice and bloody desert to round out our meal of post-apocalyptic jungle fever.

As we would expect from Tasmaniac, Neighbourhood Jungle comes at us in a highly professional package that delivers on the promise of being a collector's item. Besides good quality paper stock we get artwork that will have you grinning like a cannibal in jungle full of victims. Steve Crisp delivers the cover art work that for mine mixes McBean's concept of the post-apocalyptic jungle world with a hint of <>. But that's not all folks, like all Tasmaniac releases there are also internal illustrations, supplied here by Keith Minnion. Talk about being spoilt, I feel like the Persian cat of some fat old rich sheila who never had kids.

Alright kids if after a copy of Neighbourhood Jungle then don't allow the moss to grow over your shoes. Tasmaniac are seriously into limited edition releases, there are no second chances here, you either get in quickly or you miss out. The book is limited to 180 soft cover copies and only 26 lettered hard covers. I would get onto the internet, oh you're already there of course, and head on over to Tasmaniac to stake your claim. Clearly a number of copies have gone out to pre-orders, suck it up, so get in quick to avoid disappointment. Oh we're talking a low $14 AUD for the softback and $80 for the hardback.